The Silver Garden Apartments in Albuquerque may look like any other apartment complex but a certain a quality that makes it stand out from the crowd.
It is the first Platinum LEED affordable housing development in New Mexico.
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, according to the Silver Garden Apartments Web site.
Among the apartments’ environmentally-friendly amenities are: high performance windows, recycled and sprayed installation and high efficiency heating.
Besides the environmentally-friendly features on the inside of the building, the first of two Urban Green Energy vertical axis wind turbine is on top of the four-story building.
The wind turbine produces 4 kilowatts of energy at a wind speed rated at 12 meters a second and with the addition of the second turbine later this month, this will reduce the building’s utility bills and will eventually generate enough power to get credits from the power company, thanks to the turbines’ grid-tie feature.
Silver Gardens Apartments is a new green urban community of 66 apartments located on Silver Avenue between 1st and 2nd Streets in the heart of Downtown Albuquerque.

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Silver Gardens Apartments, located on Silver Avenue in Albuquerque, is the first Platinum LEED affordable housing development in New Mexico.